Race To GOTY 2016: American Truck Simulator

The Race To GOTY series is exactly what it says on the tin. There will be new entries, overtakes, disqualifications, and of course uncompromising wheel-to-wheel to go along with it. Game of the year title is the prize.

Much like the other contender, this one’s got literal wheels too. Eighteen being the generally accepted standard, although it is not always so.

When American Truck Simulator released in early February days, I won’t lie, it didn’t exactly knock my socks off. While still very competent in terms of value for money or technical improvement over its parallel-universe cousin, it felt somewhat not where it should have been. Not necessarily unfinished, it felt squashed.

No matter how big (or small) its world is. American Truck Simulator is fucking beautiful.

Where we stand now though, all of it is a thing of the past. Injected with satisfyingly consistent and heart-warmingly passionate support from its developers, American Truck Simulator grew. Matured. Californian wine did get its needed breath of Grand Canyon state’s fresh ai, and SCS Software aren’t done with it.

The traffic is not always ear-to-ear smiling holidaymakes. The weather is not always rainbows and warm breeze. That’s two more reasons to love it though, not less.

A few days ago, all owners of the game got to participate in a beta test of what is called ‘rescale patch’. It scales the entire available map up by about 57 per cent. The free lot of playground (with reworked scenery of course) aside, what it does is it puts American Truck Simulator where we dreamed it up to be. It’s an epitomy of freedom. No, not the I-can-do-whatever-the-fuck-I-want kind. No, I mean carrying no burden, caring not where. It makes me feel truly free, it’s the ultimate escapism.

Am I serious in having a freaking lorry simulator run for GOTY? Know what, as I sail through Monument Valley in my beastly Optimus Prime-like rig dieseling away, hauling a few tons of dynamite to the tune of a local FM radio? Yes. I am dead serious.